Over the Wall…. What a BEAUT of a day! Even in the early hours the sun was shining! As we walked up the hill towards the site, greeted by Arwen and Dominic’s Fabulous red beret, the volunteers and archaeologists were well underway, making it appear as if they hadn’t even left the night before. For the last week my group had been concentrating on the mystery that was described as a “prehistoric long barrow”, on the other side of the wall. After hours of mattocking, digging, and troweling we had established that this was not the case. Many discussions and theories later, the most likely possibility for this large mound of stoney clay was in the construction of the dry stone wall, that splits the site in two.

After recording our findings, the four of us then jumped back a few thousand years (of course not literally) and were also split in two. Two stayed on that side of the wall and assisted the rest of group J, with they’re work on trench AK. They did a fantastic job of mattoking and cleaning the Rampart and the stratigraphy can now be seen in the beautiful sections!

The other two (myself included), were allowed to hop over the wall and help out on the excavations on the barrow, in the search for the stoney ring and inner ditch. Although no ditch could be found, there were a few contenders in which will be investigated tomorrow. I finally had my first find, some worked flint! And then some more… and another, lets just say I’m now well acquainted with the recording procedure, which is great news! Although the suncream hasn’t always been needed, and we’ve all finally made use the waterproof trousers our grandmother’s bought us for Christmas, its been a fantastic hands on experience where We’ve had the opportunity to investigate both our distance, and not so distant past!